


Terribly Scrawled

by duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, as a treat, some fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr/pseuds/duckduckorangejuicerobertdowneyjr
Summary: By their tenth birthday, everyone has the first sentence their soulmate will say to them written somewhere on their person. Erik's soulmate has the worst handwriting.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 7
Kudos: 102





	Terribly Scrawled

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, here we go with a fic that was supposed to be 1k and ended up 3k!!
> 
> Fair bit of warning that this is an absolute melting pot of ALW, Leroux, Kay, and Headcanon mixed with soulmate AU. Good luck.

The words appear on his skin on a gloomy, humid day. His tenth birthday.

He knew, vaguely, that the words would be the first spoken to him by his soulmate, written in their handwriting, and would seal his love for them the moment they were spoken. But for the life of him, he couldn’t understand what they said. It was written in the cursive of another language, characters looping and circling sideways, incomprehensibly. He traced them with a shaking fingertip.

The moment Madeline saw the words, her breathing became wild, and she grabbed the boys' arm, yanking it to her face to attempt to read it.

“Nonsense! Your words are _nonsense!_ ” She cried. She shouted and raved at him, throwing his arm back to his side with enough force to send him to the ground.

“But they’re my soulmate's words!” he stifled. She stilled, going dead silent.

“God, God! I should have known! Your soulmate is some demon, speaking wicked deviltongue! The perfect match for you,” she hauled him up by the wrist, dragging him back to his room. He protested helplessly against the treatment. _They’re my soulmate's words, they’re my soulmate’s words._ They were just written in a language his poor, uneducated, reclusive mother and him, her repressed son had never seen before.

The door slammed shut behind him. He stood for a while, then went to his bed, bringing the stolen pen and paper out from under it. He copied the writing carefully. His soulmate couldn’t be evil. His mother once said that soulmates were decided by God, and God couldn't very well pair him with a demon. For the first time in a while, Erik smiled.

-+-

He was brought ceremoniously before the khanum, a heavy guard on his right guiding him by the shoulder, and the Daroga who had collected him leading to his left. The Daroga spoke to her stiltedly, and Erik thanked his decade of studying languages that he could vaguely understand them.

She ordered his mask removed. Erik could only stare, as the guard wrenched the item off of his face, prompting gasps and shrieks from his audience. All except the little sultana, who looked on with utter fascination. Erik quickly decided he did not like that look.

They conversed, him joining the conversation to her bitter surprise. Her astonishment, in fact. All he had asked was when he would be allowed to leave. She waved a hand, and the guard guided him away. To his quarters, she shouted after them. Her eyes followed him with a raptured look, burning into his back.

-+-

The blood spattered against his thin robes, his enemy spattering against the ground after it. Erik, no, the angel of death, had slammed him down with enough force to break his nose. The catgut wrapped round his throat once, twice, and with a flick of his wrist his choking opponent stilled.

He unwound the rope and stood back as two men jogged over, grabbing the corpse by the legs to drag off while the khanum clapped and laughed from her perch, leaning over to whisper something to the horrified Daroga, clearly words not meant for the Shah two seats over to hear. The Daroga leaned over to mutter something to the Shah.

The Shah leaned to his words, then he himself stood, and with a raised hand finished the executions for the day. The disappointment from the khanum was palpable. Erik bowed before them, accepting his dismissal, refusing an escort. After so long, they should know that he knew where his room was.

His first action after shutting the door was to clean himself of the tacky blood. He stripped down to his trousers, and stepped into the washroom, watering a rag and wiping off the red stains and sweat. His words gleamed black on his forearm, still, after all this time, illegible. He had designed the Shah's palace to encompass a magnificent library, and the Shah had stocked it as intended. Books on languages were in the far corner, but to his disappointment, lacked most major European languages, instead focusing on eastern scripts.

He had nevertheless postulated from the words' form and shape that they came from one of the Nordic countries, but because of their handwritten scribble, he still could not decipher which. Nor what they said.

He tossed his dirty garments into the basket, then stepped out to retrieve a fresh tunic from the chest. He stopped in the doorway. The little sultana was in his room.

Suddenly realizing his near nakedness, he moved to rush back, apologies spilling from him, but she merely held up a hand to stop him.

She stepped forward, eyes on his own with an emotion he couldn’t pinpoint.

“You know, the words on my ankle never matched what _he_ said to me when we met,” she rolled her eyes. “I married him out of necessity, and necessity alone. You, however…” As she came nearer, he resisted the urge to move back in response. Her closeness was beyond uncomfortable.

Then her eyes fell to his soulmark. She stopped talking abruptly, mouth slightly gaping. Then a new look came over her, one he could definitely pinpoint, and one that sent the chills of fear through him. She grasped his arm to examine it, eyes squinting in confusion.

“These are not my words to you,” she said accusingly. Confusion spun his mind. Honestly, he couldn’t even recall the first words she had spoken to him, nor the first words he had said to her in broken Persian.

“No. No, they’re not.” He regretted the words the moment he spoke them. The glint in her eyes fixed to cold rage.

“You _knew,_ ” she hissed. “You found out what my words were with your magician tricks before you were even brought to the palace. You said them to deceive me! To gain _my favor!_ ” She was screaming now, spit flying from her teeth as she pushed him back.

At the sound of her shouts, the two guards placed beyond the door burst in, locking in on his form. Before he could even begin to refute her, the sultana turned to them and snapped her fingers in Erik’s direction.

Both his arms were seized, and she shouted orders, orders to bring him to the northern courtyard. He felt a twinge of relief, at least that courtyard was never used for executions. The only things there were flower gardens. The fear rushed back when he remembered who exactly it was he had angered, and he wondered how she would decide to break him.

The sun had begun to set when they arrived, the torches burning outside lighting their way to the center of the gardens. The guards forced him to his knees while they waited, and wait they did. It had grown dark by the time the little sultana arrived, flanked by two more men. In one's hands was a long iron rod, with a tiny rectangular sheet of metal molded to the end. The khanum stopped a few feet in front of Erik, and the man holding the metal stepped to one of the bonfires, setting the rectangular end in the flame. She glowered at him, fury partially drained but still glowing like embers. The dread was building in him, no matter how much he tried to push it down in front of her.

“I’ve decided to spare your life, magician, if only for your usefulness. But your insolence, your _toying with soulmarks_ , will not go unpunished.”

 _He didn’t_ , he wanted to say, but of course she would not believe him. The punishment may just be made worse. She ripped the mask off his face and tossed it aside.

The man at the fire barked a word, and she nodded. The guard she brought with her wrapped a large hand around Erik's wrist, and pulled the arm straight, his other hand around his bicep to hold him still. With a hushed instruction the two who had brought him here clutched at his shoulders, holding his other arm back.

The man at the fire gloved his hands, then rose the iron free of fire, its rectangle of metal glowing orange. The sultana stood back, nodding her head with excitement, and the man moved towards him.

No, he saw what they were doing now. No!

The red-hot metal covered his soulmark, and he screamed, screamed his throat raw. The metal retreated, and when he lifted his head, the black words on his arm were mangled beyond recognition. Gone.

-+-

After escaping Persia with the Daroga's help, he had fled to France. He would be eternally grateful to the man, he was sure. The Daroga was the first in Perisa to learn about his strange soulmark, and he was the first to see the grizzly scarring when the bandages were removed. His appalled face, contorted into disgust at any word of the khanum, and pure pity for the angel of death, burned itself into Erik's mind. He almost wished the Daroga had been his soulmate, but the Daroga's words were in his late wife’s writing. He would never love again the way he had loved her.

The old house Erik had grown up in had new residents. He went to Paris instead, intent on exploring the language section of their libraries. On every scrap paper he could find he had replicated the ruined markings, yet every time he did, he thought he made a mistake in copying it. He would write another, to fix the error, but that version looked even more wrong, and on and on. Eventually, his soulmark became muddled in his once brilliant mind, distorted like the scar.

He lived in abandoned buildings, he stole money for food, and every minute was spent studying the tongues of the north. He began to grow more frustrated, taking to sobbing and raging at night. He must learn! If he knows what language it was in, he could simply wait for someone to speak it to him. He would respond to every foreign sentence with a unique word, perhaps, one that would make them recognize him as theirs!

He had been back in his home country for barely a year before being confronted by a group of drunkards he had pickpocketed in an alley. He had been confronted before, true, but this time he was exhausted, not having slept for days. The mask was knocked from his face, the men drew back in horror, and Erik laughed at their terror. He had built palaces and death traps for the Shah of Persia, and they thought they could defeat him?

The men fled, and just as Erik believed he had won, a man behind him swung something solid into the back of his head. He woke up in a cage, once again trapped, once again slave to someone else’s will. Perhaps God really did hate him, if he even existed.

He had walked the length of his prison too many times to count. He had fought against his captors, for a while, yet the whips and clubs always won. The first time he attempted to strangle one of the carnies he was beaten within an inch of his life, and one hand was shackled to the bars, his scarred arm raised for all to see.

They couldn’t do this, couldn’t hold him against his will, but his cage was covered in an inconspicuous tent, kept at the very back of the carnival to keep away the gendarme’s prying eyes, and the crowds seemed to think his distress was part of some act. He was fed little, given no protection against biting cold or stifling heat, and taunted. He was taunted endlessly.

The crowd shuffling in booed and hissed as the damaged side of his face remained turned away from them. A sharp clang of the handler's baton against metal and he turned slowly to face them. They screamed and jeered and laughed, and he wished to die. There was nothing left for him, was there?

Every day people came in speaking different languages, sometimes shouted at him. He had no way to know if they were speaking his words, and he never responded to them anyway. His shaking fingertips trailed along the twisted flesh of his arm.

Then, one night, after the day had ended and the crowds were clearing, he discovered a dropped hairpin within arm’s reach of his person. He examined it, his mind wondering why it was important. The handler entered the cage, not even sparing him a glance before stooping to pick up thrown coins, back turned, whip coiled on his hip.

Instinct, near forgotten, kicked in.

The shackles snapped open and Erik charged, snatching and unraveling the whip before the man could even react, coiling it around his tormentor's neck. He flicked his wrist. A corpse was laying on the straw now, the door to his cage still cracked open.

A women in black glimpsed through the curtained entrance of the tent in horror, as the deformed man slipped through the gate, then vanished into the shadows.

-+-

His soulmate didn’t exist. They were dead, or had never even been born. Perhaps they were a demon he would meet in hell like his mother had so believed.

He was pushing his late fourties, and after so long of seeing raised skin where words had once scrawled, he began to forget they were ever there to begin with. He set pen to sheet music, and wrote his sorrowful heart out.

-+-

The young soprano sobbed in the empty common dressing room. She had been comforted by the other ballerinas for some time, but eventually, asked of them that she be left in peace to mourn.

He looked down at her from the rafters. Her crying was very pitiful indeed. It was the anniversary of her father’s passing. If he remembered correctly, he had been a Swedish violinist, a good one at that. Erik held no care for Nordic origins anymore.

She was a kind girl, always seeing the best in others, even when she shouldn’t. Her crying was draining him, he could not have such sounds interrupting the calm of his opera house. Looking to make sure no one else was present, he hummed a light lullaby, gently crooning the melody that he allowed to echo, to fill the room.

She looked up, the tears coming slower now, looking all around as music surrounded her. He sang the first soft lyric and her eyes grew wide. She looked all the way up, to almost directly where he hid, and asked a question in a language he had studied immensely his entire life. The words seemed familiar, so familiar, so-

He gasped, cutting off his own song in a gentle echo. She laughed, the sound like a fairy's wing.

“Is my soulmate the angel of music?” She repeated, in French now. “You sang my words!”

Something clicked in his head. Tears stung his eyes. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be! He slunk down from on high, dropping to the floor without a creak. Her eyes found him in the darkness, and she stared in wonder at his imposing figure, clad in black and white.

“Show me,” he whispered. It was improper, indecent for a woman to remove her clothing in a random man's presence, but he had to know.

“You’re not the angel...” she whispered, and his heart plummeted, but her face was still wonderstruck and she gently pulled back her shift, showing him the song's first lyrics written in his own elegant script over her heart. His shocked expression told her everything she needed to know, and she beamed.

“My name is Christine. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Now he was the one crying.

-+-

They had been meeting for months, for singing lessons, and to talk. Christine happily spilled the stories of her childhood, but Erik was reluctant. She understood, and did not question further about his past. Yet, during one meeting, Christine sheepishly glanced at him as he stepped through the mirror.

“What seems to be the issue?” Was Christine being tormented by the newest ballet rat again? Did he have to put more sand in her ballet shoes?

She bit her lip.

“It’s just… the first time we met you asked to see my soulmark, and…” Oh, he knew where this was going. She saw him clam up, and hurried to correct herself.

“No, no, it’s okay if you don’t want to, I just wanna-“

“You wish to prove that I am your soulmate.”

“I already know that you’re my soulmate! I just… forget I asked. I'm sorry.”

Erik, no, the Phantom stood for a while as her eyes averted in shame. A great weight settled on him as he considered. He did not want to burden her with his tortured past, but _not_ knowing could burden her more. She should know, he finally decided. She deserved to know. Even if she would ask to see his face soon, too.

He stepped towards her, prompting her to look up in surprise as he shed his cloak and coat, letting them drop to the ground. He rolled up his sleeve as slowly as he could, and braced for the disgust.

Christine’s hands softly took his bare wrist, holding up his arm to the light. A look of horror turned to pity, turned to sorrow, and tears filled her vision. The unspoken question hung in the air.

“Persia,” he started, and with a soft sigh, recounted the tale. He recounted it all, her gently stroking the twisted skin of his arm. When he finished, she looked towards his face.

“Is that why...” she gestured to the mask.

“No, that was an act beyond her control. Possibly beyond anyone’s control.”

She gazed at him again, leveling him with the same curiously sorrowful look, and he took a deep breath, his reluctant, shaking hand moving to remove the mask. She stopped him.

“I can tell you’re not comfortable about it yet. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” The relief was overwhelming, and though he was growing tired of tears, the ones rolling down his face now were of joy.

Her hand dropped from his arm, and instead went around his chest, pulling him close as she cried with him. For a second he didn’t know what to do, but as he settled into the embrace he realized how nice it felt, and his arms found their way around her as well, his head buried in her curls. She was holding him. She was not disgusted. She was not mad, or angry, or frightened. She loved him.

_She loved him._

-+-

The next day, when he came for their meeting, she held up a quill pen. She lightly took his arm, rolling up the sleeve, and penned scrawling Swedish in her lovely, downright awful handwriting over the scar tissue. She finished, and he held up his arm to see.

It looked exactly right.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Criticism/kudos always loved and appreciated.


End file.
